


I like me better when I'm with you

by hopeintheashes



Series: Home [4]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Flu shot, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28958952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeintheashes/pseuds/hopeintheashes
Summary: One-shots that fit thematically withHomebut aren't overly concerned with timelines or canon for the show or for the rest of the fics in the series. As always: Just an excuse for shameless hurt/comfort.Title from Lauv.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034745
Comments: 15
Kudos: 144





	I like me better when I'm with you

**Author's Note:**

> I started working on the quarantine fic that will be actually be the next part of the series, but this is what I ended up writing instead. :-)

. . .

"Is your arm sore?" 

"Nah." Buck moves it experimentally and grimaces. "Well. Maybe a little bit." 

Eddie nods. "Mine was fucking miserable. Christopher was in tears even with Tylenol and an ice pack; I felt so bad. I dunno what it was this year, everyone I talked to had a hard time. Guess that means we'll be extra protected?" 

"Better be," Buck mutters darkly, and then shakes it off. "Anyway. Better than actually getting the flu. Wish I could've slept in instead of showing up at the station when we're off shift, but I guess I can't complain too much about a free clinic that comes to you." He flips through his folder until he finds the conference agenda and runs his finger down the page. They're in the mid-afternoon break; one more block of training and then they're done for the day. "Are we going somewhere for dinner?" 

"Hen said that she and Karen went somewhere good on this side of town; I'll text her and get the name of the restaurant. And yeah, sitting in the waiting room with all the sick people when Christopher and I got ours at the doctor's only barely felt worth the risk. At least you were only under threat of getting pulled back on shift." 

"They already paid for me to go to this thing; they're not gonna take me when they can pull some poor schmuck who was on his way to the beach." 

"Mm." He hits _send_ on the text to Hen and checks the time. "We'd better head back in." 

It's reasonably interesting, as these things go, but sitting and listening isn't any firefighter's forte, so he can't really blame Buck for nodding off as they get into hour six. They're sitting close enough to the front that the presenter can probably see them, though, so he does nudge Buck with his shoulder once his chin starts to drop to his chest. Unfortunately, Buck's just enough taller than him that it catches his upper arm, and he comes to with a hiss of pain. "Shit, shit, sorry," Eddie whispers, and rubs the spot in apology. He can feel the bandaid from the shot through the fabric of Buck's LAFD polo, but more than that, he can feel the heat. He frowns and moves his fingers just enough to get under the fabric of the sleeve. Buck's arm is swollen and hot. "Just a little bit sore, huh?" he murmurs, but lets Buck wave him off. They're almost done. He rifles through his backpack as quietly as he can, but no painkillers. Damn. 

When the presentation is over, they follow the crowd out into the hall. "Back in a minute," Eddie tells Buck, and makes his way to the bathroom. Firefighting conferences: one of the few places where the men's room line is actually longer than the ladies'. When he makes his way back a few minutes later, Buck's sitting on the edge of a low wall, head in his hands. Well, his good hand. His left arm is pulled in protectively against his body. Eddie frowns again and sits down beside him. "You okay?" 

"Yeah." Buck sits up and shakes his head a little bit. "Just tired. Sitting in those chairs all day is not my idea of a good time." He sits up taller, stretching his back. "We've got like an hour to kill before dinner, do you want to hang out here or find something to do?" 

"You sure you don't just want to head home?" 

"Are you kidding? Hen's been texting me photos from the restaurant's Instagram. I can't say I ever really thought about Peruvian food before, but it looks incredible. Besides, if we leave now we're in rush hour traffic and it's going to take us twice as long to get back. Would you rather spend that extra hour in gridlock or eating this?" Buck holds up his phone to show him a picture of grilled meat with rice and beans. It does look delicious. 

"Fair enough. I'm fine to stay here." The conference center lobby has plush armchairs and low tables, and complimentary mint-and-rosemary water. There are worse places to kill an hour. 

Buck grins, victorious, and holds out his right hand so that Eddie can pull him up. They follow the last of the crowd out to the lobby and stake their claim on a couple of chairs with a view of the street. By the time the next wave of people comes out of some other training in another part of the conference center, Buck's sunk deep into the oversize armchair, earbuds in, eyes closed. 

"Hey." Eddie knocks his foot against Buck's and waits for him to open his eyes and pull out one earbud. "I'm gonna go call Christopher." Buck looks around as if to say, _you could do that from here,_ but Eddie shakes his head. "I've gotta walk around. Been sitting too long." Buck nods and puts his earbud back in and lets his eyes slip closed again. 

Eddie shoulders his backpack, mostly because Buck's not going to be awake to watch it, and hits _call_ on the number for abuela's landline. It's Pepa who picks up, and reassures him that Christopher is there, and excited for his sleepover, and doing a puzzle with abuela. Eddie smiles, and a minute later he's on with Christopher. "Hey, mijo, how was school?" 

"It was so good! I aced my math test." Beaming with pride. Sometimes Eddie's not sure how his own heart doesn't burst, the way it swells with love for this kid. 

"I knew you would! And now you're doing a puzzle with abuela? What's it of?" 

He lets Christopher talk, and wanders down a hall that turns out to lead to the hotel side of the conference center. He's about to turn back when it occurs to him that hotels mean ice machines, and keeps going until he finds one, muting his mic long enough to fill one of the plastic bags that's meant to line the ice bucket from someone's room. 

"Tía says it's time for dinner," Christopher tells him, cutting off his own story about an art project he'd done at school. 

"Okay, have a good night and I'll see you in the morning, okay? Love you." 

"Love you too. And tell Buck." 

His heart again. He's never going to survive. "I will. That'll make him feel better. His arm hurts from his flu shot." 

"Oww. Tell him it goes away. But it hurts a _lot_ first." Shuffling on the other end. "Okay, I gotta go. Bye!" 

Eddie laughs to himself, and makes his way back through the nondescript halls. Buck's curled sideways now, asleep with his head on the arm of the chair, carefully arranged so that he's only lying on his right side. Eddie touches his left shoulder, up on the collarbone to avoid the sorest spot. Buck blinks his eyes open. Eddie had only been gone for maybe twenty minutes, but Buck's already flush with sleep. Eddie holds up the bag of ice, eyebrows raised. Buck nods tiredly and closes his eyes again, so Eddie gently lowers it onto his arm, arranging it so that it's on his sleeve rather than his skin, draped over the top of his shoulder so it won't slip down. Buck exhales, and it sounds like relief, so Eddie leaves it there and settles into the chair next to Buck. He's grateful that the conference center is busy, and large enough that they're not particularly close to the front desk, so that no employees are likely to come by and ask why their lobby has been turned into a living room. "Christopher says hi," he tells Buck. "And that he loves you, and that your arm will feel better eventually, but, and I quote, it'll hurt a lot first." 

Buck breathes a laugh. "Love that kid." Far away, like he's already most of the way back to sleep. 

Eddie couldn't stop the fond smile if he tried. "I know." 

He lets Buck sleep for another half hour, scrolling through his phone and texting Hen for recommendations on the Peruvian food, and then decides that they've hit the sweet spot where if they head for the restaurant now, they should be finishing just as the traffic is letting up. It's earlier than they'd normally eat if they were going out, but clearly Buck's not up for a late night, and alternative is staying right here in these chairs, which really weren't mean to be sat in this long. He stands and stretches, making a face at the way his neck pops. Buck's back is going to be all fucked up from the way he's been sleeping the last hour. 

Buck must've heard him get up, because he blinks his eyes open on his own. "Time for dinner?" he asks, and his voice is rough. 

"Yeah. I'm gonna call an Uber, since we'd have to come back by here anyway and that way we can just keep our parking spot." 

Buck nods, and yawns, and checks his phone. "Well, if I had any doubts about what to order, Hen just sent me more recommendations than I could eat in a week." 

"We'd better get started, then," Eddie tells him, shouldering his bag again and taking the now-melted ice pack from Buck to throw away while Buck gets himself up and situated. "The Uber's on its way." 

The restaurant is cozy and nearly full, but there's no wait, and the service is quick, and pretty soon their order is in and their drinks have arrived. Eddie starts telling Buck about Christopher and his math test and his art project, but trails off when Buck drops his head into his shaking hand. "Buck." Quiet. Reaching for him across the table. 

"I'm okay." Eyes closed. Voice unsteady.

"Except for the part where you're clearly not." He gets a hand on Buck's arm. "It's not that warm in here," he tells him, because he knows that's going to be Buck's excuse for the heat underneath his palm. Buck just shrugs. 

Eddie flags down the server the next time he walks by. "Your food will be ready shortly," the server starts to say, but Eddie shakes his head. 

"I'm so sorry, but we need to switch to having it wrapped up to go." 

The server blinks, but stays professional. "Certainly, sir." 

Buck's shaking his head. "No, we don't, we're fine—" 

The server looks between them, confused. 

Eddie says firmly, "Yes, we do." He catches the server's eye and looks significantly at Buck. "No se siente bien." 

The server takes in Buck's flushed cheeks and glassy eyes, and nods, and takes half a step back before he can stop himself. "Ah. Claro que sí." 

"I understood all that," Buck grumbles as the server hurries toward the kitchen to make the switch. 

He shrugs. "And you didn't deny it." 

Buck rolls his eyes. "Fine. You win. A mí no me siento bien." Stilted, like he's reciting it from memory. 

"Close." Eddie takes his hand across the table, thumb sweeping over the dip between Buck's thumb and index finger, trying to soothe away the heat. "You don't need the first part. You could say it with _me gusta_ , but not here." 

Buck sighs and drops his forehead onto their joined hands. "In that case, no me siento bien y a mí no me gusta el... la... flu shot." 

Quiet and low: "Ya lo sé." He twists his hand so that he can get his thumb moving on Buck's forehead instead. "We'll be home soon, okay?" 

The server brings their boxed up food, and the check, and Eddie leaves an extra-large tip, and calls another Uber, and leads Buck back outside. He's shivering now, and when Eddie puts an arm around his shoulder he leans heavily into his side. 

Buck pulls himself together long enough to make it back to Eddie's truck, which means Eddie doesn't have to figure out how to explain the whole "yes, he's sick, no, he's not contagious" thing to their driver, whose first language isn't English or Spanish, or Swedish for that matter. (Eddie's best guess from his accent and the flag on the dashboard is that he's from the part of West Africa that was colonized by the French, which means that he probably speaks even more languages than Eddie does, there's just not a whole lot of overlap.) 

They weren't in the restaurant long enough to completely wait out rush hour, so when the Uber driver drops them off next to his truck in the parking garage, Eddie calculates that it's probably going to be an hour and a half home. "We can stay here," he tells Buck, gesturing to signs showing the way to the conference center's hotel, both of them sitting in the truck with the engine off. "Christopher's with Pepa and abuela; neither of us is on shift tomorrow; there's no reason we have to make the drive right now." 

Buck shakes his head and his eyebrows pull tight like it hurts. Eddie reaches over to smooth a thumb over the furrow of his brow. Buck closes his eyes when Eddie's palm meets his forehead. "It's fine. I just want to get home." Another shiver. "You can drop me at my place." 

"Buck." They've talked about this. 

"Or." Trying to sound like he doesn't care. "If you wanted to bring me to your house... I wouldn't say no." 

"You idiot." No heat at all, quiet and fond. "Of course we're going to my house. Unless you really want your own bed, in which case I'm coming with you there." 

"Your bed is better." Slipping into sleep again. 

It's empirically not; it's second-hand and too hard for anyone who hasn't spent endless nights sleeping in the Afghan dirt. If they ever do move in together, Eddie's mind thinks before he can stop it, Buck's bed is probably the one they'll keep.

"Okay." Eddie digs around in the back seat and come up with an old, worn quilt. "Sleep, okay?" Buck nods and burrows into the quilt. 

By some stroke of luck they make it home in an hour-fifteen. Buck groans when they pull into the driveway. "God. Everything just... aches." 

"Yeah," Eddie murmurs, and leads him inside. It's too early for bed but that's where they end up anyway, Buck unselfconsciously shedding his clothes so that he can bury himself in the blankets and sheets. Eddie sit on the edge of the bed. He's been ready for dinner for an hour, but it can wait. "What do you need?" 

Buck shakes his head like coming up with an answer would be too much work. 

"Water, painkillers..." Eddie gets his hand on Buck's forehead again, and then down to his left arm, both still too warm. "Ice pack?" Buck shivers in reply. "Rice bag?" That's what Christopher always wants when his muscles ache. He gets a noise in return that sounds like affirmation, and pushes himself up. "Be right back. You want anything to eat?" 

"Maybe." Buck pulls the covers over his head to block out the light. "Not yet." 

A glass of water, Aleve, a granola bar, the rice pack warm from the microwave. Eddie grabs an orange for himself to hold him over until he can get to the food from the restaurant that he'd stashed in the fridge on their way in. He thinks Buck's already asleep when he comes back in three minutes later, until Buck asks, "It wasn't this bad for you?" 

Eddie sits on the edge of the bed again and gets a hand on the lump in the blanket that is Buck. "No. My arm hurt like a motherfucker, but the rest of it wasn't like this." He has some private suspicions about how the way Buck pushes himself the rest of the time might be playing into this, but decides it's not exactly a useful thing to say. "Guess you're just lucky."

"I mean." Buck lets Eddie pull the covers back enough to hand him the pills and the water, and looks up at him, guileless and unironic. "I really am."

It's a couple of hours later, when the meds have kicked in and Buck has dragged Eddie's comforter with him to the couch and they're eating Peruvian food with a Marvel movie on, that Eddie knocks his knee against Buck's. "Hey." 

"Mm?" Buck looks at him sideways, halfway through a bite. 

Eddie grins at him and raises his beer in a gesture like a toast. "I'm pretty lucky, too."

. . .


End file.
